Back to Iraq

Bad news for the National Guard members who put their lives on hold to fight the president's war in Iraq: 14,000 of them are going back, joining the troop escalation.

National Guard officials told state commanders in Arkansas, Indiana, Oklahoma and Ohio last month that while a final decision had not been made, units from their states that had done previous tours in Iraq and Afghanistan could be designated to return to Iraq next year between January and June, the officials said.

The unit from Oklahoma, a combat brigade with one battalion currently in Afghanistan, had not been scheduled to go back to Iraq until 2010, and brigades from the other three states not until 2009. Each brigade has about 3,500 soldiers.

Whether they'll be properly equipped is an open question.

Capt. Christopher Heathscott, a spokesman for the Arkansas National Guard, said the state’s 39th Brigade Combat Team was 600 rifles short for its 3,500 soldiers and also lacked its full arsenal of mortars and howitzers.

This problem will no doubt be resolved by the stepping forward of many young (and not so young) Republicans who vociferously support this occupation. Fox News alone could provide at least one brigade replacement to the National Guard units, while this blog can muster up at least one crack unit of soldiers eager to taste "Moslem' blood. Onward Christian soldiers!

quite sure it will fall on deaf ears here, but most units swap out equipment anyway. It is easier and cheaper to leave equipment in the sandbox and have another unit take it over. Equipment is taken over when divisions are added to subtracted from. e.g. 3rd id, 4th id etc.

...weapons that are different from those they will use in Iraq and discounts the fact that many of the weapons and weapon systems in Iraq are either broken beyond repair (FUBAR) or damaged and in need of way-backlogged repairs. (SNAFU)

Our troops deserve better, but with a C-in-C like bush, well, I guess they have to count their blessings that they even have uniforms. Until Chinese textile companies refuse to make 'em or loan us the money to buy them anyway.

Ain't it cool how the Communist Chinese, our bankers, continue financing this war and laughing themselves sick watching America throwing good money after bad?

You don't deny that China is "the guy sitting in the back of the room and smiling", do you?

Oh, right. I'm sure they're very worried to see how "serious" we are, now that we've taken the kid gloves off. I'm sure they have the utmost respect for a country where people support the most spectacularly counterproductive leader since, well, Mao.

At first sight, the city looked more damaged and brutally wounded, and more devastated than when I left it last year. Not a single hour passes without one hearing an explosion, a car bomb, or devastated women and children screaming for help. I saw people running from a suicide bomber and others trying to pull bodies from a fire. Sirens from ambulances and police cars and helicopters flying day and night all over the city all join in to create a constant roar of horrible noises.

(Click here for more from Jabria Jassim, an Elgin [Illinois] Community College chemistry professor, recently visited Baghdad to see relatives.)

it's astounding to me that we've been in iraq for almost four years and that things are as horrible as professor jassim describes them... think of the money spent (unimaginable sums), think of the lives lost (in the hundreds of thousands), think of the on-going human tragedy that will take generations to heal (incalculable)... and why are we there in the first place...? lies... now, we're sending more americans to die...

...from Bitburg, Germany, all the way across Luxembourg, and to the Patton War Memorial in Bastogne I can tell you with certainty that the sight of rolling green hills blanketed with white crosses and Stars of David for as far as the eye could see in every direction marking the graves of American soldiers was more touching, and the best reminder of the folly and horror of war, that I have ever personally experienced.

So well-equipped or not that memorial, to me, represented the deaths of good men from the perfidy of governments.

Personally I despise war. I guess I'm kind of clear about that. Breaking our military and sending under-trained and unequipped troops to Iraq is sheer idiocy and bordering on criminal.

They can either cut off funding for the entire operation or they can adequately fund supplies. The ball is in their court - let's see if all of this complaining will lead to actual (as opposed to non-binding) legistlation.

When the 101st was sent to Bastogne, how close to full strength (and full equipment) were they?

they must have been in pretty decent shape, since they held out for roughly 10 days, with only a couple of air drops of supplies (the weather was too bad for flying), during most of it.

of course, unlike now, they didn't have the luxury of being deployed on schedule, they were rushed in to plug up the town against the germans.

When the 20th Maine charged Confederate positions on July 1st, 1863, how fully equipped were they?

again, they were in pretty decent shape, equipment and supply wise, having just spent several weeks in camp, preparing to move forward. at various times and points during the entire battle, some union units did run low on ammo, but they were fairly quickly re-supplied. by that stage of the war, meigs had the quartermaster corp. running pretty efficiently.

it was the confederates who had supply problems, lee having stretched his lines far into enemy territory, and nearly gotten himself cut off from the south. as well, they had defective fuses for their cannon, the report on them not coming out until after gettysburg was lost.

This war is becoming increasingly unsustainable. Has anyone noticed that the Brits are being sent home instead of being redeployed to other parts of Iraq? There is a limit to the number of times that soldiers can be deployed into combat without it having an effect. In Vietnam you were only sent for 365 days. Why do we treat our soldiers in Iraq differently?

Our servicemen, including National Guard units are already paying the price for these multiple deployments. In 2004 Time reported that 17% of Iraqi veterans have symptoms of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), 12% had PTSD. That number has increased with mulitple deployments. According to mental health professionals in February 2006 up to one-third of veterans now suffer from some degree of PTSD. Divorce rates for servicemen has also spiked - among enlisted personnel it is up 28 percent and for officers it's up 78 percent (2005). For more on this,see my recent diary post.

Abdul,
Let me understand your position. Since our soldiers and vets were treated badly in the past you don't care if they are mistreated now or in the future. If something is wrong does it matter which party has the "prez or Congress"?

Maybe the difference between us is that while I oppose the war but support the troops, you support the war but oppose the troops.

It's almost too much too hope for or believe possible, after the antics and timidity since the elections last November, but, maybe, just maybe, we're getting somewhere, slowly.

Are Reid and Pelosi finally getting the message and growing the cojones to come out of the corner swinging and bring an end to Bush and Cheney's Iraq debacle? Or are we being set up to be let down again?

Can they get it done in time? Before the pressure tilts Bush over the edge and he uses the chaos in Iraq to gin up a faked Iranian provocation to use as pretext for another war?